


breathe till I'm full

by stelleappese



Category: Saturday Night Live RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety, Depersonalization, Dissociation, Fluff, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Jealousy, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:49:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelleappese/pseuds/stelleappese
Summary: It's 2006. Bill is already having a hard time trying to deal with the job of his dreams and his almost crippling anxiety,thenthings become complicated.
Relationships: Bill Hader/Seth Meyers
Comments: 28
Kudos: 79





	breathe till I'm full

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this... in October 2019. It's not exactly *finished*, but it can sort of stand on its own.
> 
> Listen.
> 
> This was born out of 1) an overwhelming rush of nostalgia towards my teenage years; 2) an unexpected feeling of empathy towards Bill Hader's struggles as a human being; 3) an embarassingly intense crush on Seth Meyers.
> 
> I don't know what this is. I just really like how it turned out, and wanted it next to the rest of my fanfic on the Archive, so here it is.

Bill is halfway to his apartment when he notices he’s left his keys back at the office. It’s three in the morning. It’s snowing. The adrenaline of today’s show has been frozen stiff by the freezing cold.  
All he can do is turn around and retrace his steps back to Rockefeller Center.

Early Sunday morning is a weird time to be back in the office: the rest of the week, the SNL headquarters are constantly vibrating with barely controlled chaos, but now, a couple of hours after the show, the office is ghostly quiet.   
Bill makes his way to the common room, but stops before he gets there, noticing a slight blade of light coming from Seth’s door.

Uh.

On one hand, he wants to go home. He wants to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before Monday officially starts, wants to sink as deep as humanly possible in his bed. On the other hand, the fact that light is on is like an itch on his brain. 

“Fuck it,” he mumbles, half-jogging to Seth’s office, meaning to just turn off the light and leave. When he peeps inside, though, he realizes that it’s not that Seth forgot to turn off the light, it’s that he never left at all. 

He’s sitting at his desk, in the weirdest position possible, almost cross-legged but not really, he’s buried his face in his arms, and he’s snoring softly on top of his keyboard. The word file on the desktop is an uninterrupted line of ‘ffffffffffff’s that fills, Bill sees when he gets a little closer, 25 pages and counting.

Bill sighs. He considers putting a blanket over Seth, but he figures if he sleeps all night in that position, no chiropractor in the world will be able to straighten him up again.  
“Seth,” he says, crouching and giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Buddy, wake up.”  
Seth groans. It takes him a moment to lift up his head and give Bill a pouty, sleepy look.  
“Are we on air?” he asks, squinting at Bill.  
“Nope.”  
“Cool.” Seth whispers, closing his eyes again and almost lulling back to sleep.  
“Ok.” Bill sighs, “Can you get up?”  
Seth mumbles something Bill doesn’t catch, but he does get off the chair when Bill grabs him and gently coaxes him up. He then proceeds to stumble, and Bill has to wrap himself up around him to keep him from ending up sprawled on the floor.  
“Uh.” Seth says, without even opening his eyes, “Can’t feel my leg.”  
“It’s all right, it’s still attached.”  
“Ok.” it seems he doesn’t mind the position, because he presses his cheek against Bill’s shoulder, wraps his arms around Bill’s body, and sighs deeply.

Bill wonders if there is any sort of protocol to follow when your boss has been ground down to such a deep level of exhaustion he snuggles against you and takes a nap.  
He tries taking a step towards the couch, though, and Seth follows. Good.  
“Just a bit further. You’re doing great, buddy.” Bill says.  
“Aw, thanks.” Seth answers, in a voice so small and a tone so soft and genuinely pleased that Bill feels a rush of heat to his face.

They reach the couch without major incidents, and Seth immediately stuffs his arms underneath the pillow and curls up. Bill grabs the cover from the bedrest of the couch and gingerly covers him up.

He lets himself fall on the armchair and breathes out deeply, head back, staring at the fan or orange light the lamp projects on the ceiling for a long moment. 

He’ll just rest for a moment, get his keys, go back home.  
Just for a moment.

He wakes up to the tap-tap-tap of fingers on a keyboard. The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Seth’s back as he sits at his desk again, the nape of his neck left naked by the too-wide neck of the battered sweater he’s wearing.  
“What time is it?” he asks. Seth turns the whole chair around and looks at him.  
“Almost six am.”  
“Shit.”  
“I’m making some coffee,” he says, nodding in the general direction of the common area where the staff that hasn’t worked their way up to the luxury of a cramped little office like Seth’s hang out.  
“Shit,” Bill repeats, leaning forwards and rubbing his eyes. His lower back and neck both hurt. And the lamp on Seth’s desk is still fucking on.

As he sits in the reddish darkness behind his eyelids, he’s hit with the flash of an image: Seth, covered up to his nose, his hair sticking up, his eyelashes trembling; the light from the lamp warming up the lower half of his body, the cold shade of blue coming up through the window from the streets of Manhattan making his hair look almost gray.

He must have fallen asleep looking at Seth. Which is. Troubling.

“Thanks, you know.” Seth’s disembodied voice says. Bill removes his hands from his face and looks at Seth, who slowly appears as the blur in front of Bill’s eyes fades away. He’s _ still _ sitting with a leg folded underneath his body, and he also still looks completely exhausted.  
“For…” he waves his hand around for a moment, then says: “For tucking me in,” and bursts into a little laugh.

It may be because Bill is, by nature, an incredibly anxious guy and barely looks people he hasn’t known for at least half a decade in the eye; or because he’s been working on SNL for just a little more than a year and still has to stop finding everything around him intimidating; or because he’s slept for three hours and the world feels surreal and insubstantial, but for the first time since his audition, he looks at Seth and every single neuron in his brain goes ‘_fuck._’

There are some people for whom smiling seems to be their natural state, the entire reason why their faces were designed, and looking at Seth and at the way he’s smiling now, sleepy and a little self-conscious, but still wide and bright, Bill realizes Seth is one of them. 

“Yeah,” Bill croaks, then he clears his throat and says; “Sorry, uh. No problem. I’ll, hm, I’ll check on that coffee…” he mumbles, getting up. He ignores how rusty and creaky his knees feel and marches out.

In around twenty-four hours, people will be swarming the office again, writers converging to the pitch meeting, interns running around delivering messages and steaming cups of coffee. For now, everything is quiet. 

Maybe, Bill thinks, maybe he just needs a few more hours of sleep, and then he’ll go back to normal, Seth Meyers will go back being his nice but slightly bitchy boss, he’ll never look as small and fucking cute as he did just seconds ago.  
“This is not fucking high school, Hader,” he murmurs, staring at the coffee machine as it steams but stubbornly doesn’t produce any coffee yet. ‘_You’re not going to develop a fucking crush on your teacher._’ his mind concludes the sentence.

This, he decides, is not happening.

*

Except it’s Saturday night again, the show is over, and people are either going home or getting ready to go to the afterparty, and Bill finds himself lingering, going through the motions of carefully putting on his coat, checking his keys are in his pocket, carefully wrapping his scarf around his face.

Bill’s brain tells him to cross the floor, get on the elevator, go home. Bill’s _legs_ take him halfway across the floor, then sharply turn towards Seth’s office.

It’s dumb. He’ll find Seth getting ready to leave, or maybe he’s already left, who knows. There is no way he spends his Saturday nights collapsed in his office. Last week was definitely just something that randomly happened, and…

The door to Seth’s office is open, and Bill reaches it just as Seth is sitting down at his desk. He looks up at Bill with a curious expression that instantly turns into a smile.  
“Hey, Bill.” he says.  
“Hey,” Bill answers, weakly. 

He’s ditched his Weekend Update suit in favor of the baggiest of sweaters with an SNL hoodie on top, which both make him look way tinier than he actually is. 

“You going to the afterparty?” Bill asks.  
“Uhm. Nah, I’m just gonna finish something.” Seth says, “I just need to write this real quick, before I forget it.”  
“Ok.” Bill nods, but he still stands there, lingering on the doorway, looking at him. He bites his lips, frowns to himself. “Hey, listen,” he finally says, “I was thinking of going ‘round the corner and getting some Chinese food, do you, uh. Do you want anything?”  
Seth gives him a long look, and Bill thinks he’s about to tell him that he’s not hungry and Bill should go home, and honestly, did he think he wouldn’t catch him staring at his ass as he walks past him? Because he totally has, and that’s not cool, man, that’s not _professional_ , and, well, Bill should at least try to be professional, since he’s not even fucking funny, and Seth has _no clue_ what he was thinking when he hired him, and-  
“Why don’t you get it delivered?” Seth asks, opening and closing drawers until he’s found a battered menu, which he hands over to Bill.  
“Oh.” Bill whispers, “Yeah, sure. I’ll just…”  
Bill grabs one of the several half-used sticky notes pads scattered around Seth’s desk, a pen, and crouches down next to Seth, setting the menu between them so they can both see it.

The whole time Bill is writing down their order (and crossing out, and writing back again, then doodling because Seth has started telling him something funny and he got distracted,) Bill is almost painfully aware of every inch of his skin, every brush of Seth’s shoulder against his own.

This time, they both sleep the whole night; Seth curled up on the couch and Bill lying sideways in the armchair. Bill wakes up with his whole butt hanging off the armchair, the slightest movement away from falling off, facing the window. He blinks at the silvery day outside, at the falling snow, at the windows of the building on the other side of the street, which are slowly blinking yellow as people wake up and offices open.

*

On the early morning of the following Saturday, Bill drops by Seth’s office to ask him something about their sketch during Weekend Updates, and notices an extra pillow and a folded blanket on the little table stuffed in the square of space in the corner between the couch and the armchair.

Later on, Bill is lying sideways in his armchair, reading a book while Seth works. Or _trying_ to read a book, anyway. He keeps getting distracted by the way the orange light of Seth’s lamp frames his shape, by the little curl of hair at the nape of his neck.  
There are empty pizza boxes and beer bottles all over the coffee table. Bill is so sleepy, he can’t for the love of him figure out where Seth finds the mental strength to keep on working.

He’s the one who wakes up with a pillow under his head and a blanket carefully covering him up, this time around. Seth has slipped Bill’s book out of his hands, stuffed a napkin in it to mark the page he was on, and set it on the table.

Bill wakes up, by the way, because the smell of freshly made coffee grabbed him and dragged him away from his confused dreams.  
“Morning,” Seth smiles, sitting on the couch and setting on the table one of those tall paper coffee cups from the café down the street. They’ve switched to holiday ones, Bill drowsily notices; with little red-and-green Christmas lights doodled on them.  
“I didn’t know if you wanted anything to eat. I figured I’d wait for you to wake up and we can, you know. Get some breakfast. If you want.”  
“Sure,” Bill murmurs. His voice doesn’t sound particularly strange to his own ears, but something in it seems to make Seth smile.

Shit. He’s so fucking pretty like that, still scruffy with sleep, with that oversized SNL hoodie on and his cheeks and nose red from the cold outside.  
“It’s funny, you know,” Seth says, after a sip of coffee, already grinning in anticipation of what he’s about to say, “We never had a proper breakfast together, during these past weeks. Even though we sleep together every Saturday night.”  
Bill almost chokes on his coffee, and Seth bursts into laughter.

He’s right, though. This is the first time they get downstairs and don’t each go in a separate direction. The day is both sunny and freezing cold, and even just walking down the street next to Seth has a dreamlike quality to it. Their shoulders bump from time to time. Seth will look at him, and his eyes alone (which have never, to Bill, looked as pale and bright as they do now) will tell Bill exactly what kind of expression he’s wearing underneath the big scarf that covers most of his face.

It’s a different kind of surreal, Bill thinks, as they sit down next to a window, facing each other; there are no deep shadows and dim lights, there’s just the cold, delicate early morning light of winter. Seth should feel more tangible, should he? He should feel more real.  
But as he talks about comic books and new movies coming up, scrunching up his nose when he laughs and resting his chin on his hand from time to time, he looks almost incorporeal, to Bill.

That’s not what messes Bill up, though.

He’s used to his perception of reality doing weird things, by now. He knows if he reaches out and touches Seth, he won’t disappear into thin air.

What messes Bill up is the intense, throbbing, painful _longing_ that fills him as Seth pokes at his pancakes with a fork and, at Bill’s request, rates Star Wars movies from most to least liked. Because it’s not just that Bill has a thing for authority figures, nor that he latched on to the first person who _really_ gave him a little bit of attention at his new job, nor that he’s vaguely star-struck even now. It’s that the more he talks to Seth, the more he realizes just how fucking _normal_ he is, and the less glamorous he turns out to be, the more smitten Bill becomes.

*

“How come you never go to Lorne’s afterparties?” Bill asks, at one point.

Tonight, Seth wasn’t typing away on his computer, when Bill arrived; he was sitting on the couch, feet on the coffee table, squinting at his Blackberry. He’d smiled brightly at Bill, straightened up, asked him if he wanted to get some sushi.

Now, almost two hours later, they’re sitting side by side on the couch, and Seth’s eyelids are starting to look pretty heavy. He’s got his arms crossed against his chest, a little sleepy pout. From time to time he’ll close his eyes while he talks.

“Oh, you know.” Seth murmurs, “I’m old.”  
“Shut up.”  
“Plus, I’ve partied enough in 2001.”  
Bill giggles at that. “Didn’t you start working here in 2001?”  
“Yes,” Seth says, grinning, eyes still closed. “And it was more than enough partying as far as I’m concerned.”

Bill is about to joke about Seth _really_ being an old dude, but then Seth rests his head against Bill’s shoulder, and every single muscle in Bill’s body immediately tenses up.  
“What about you?” Seth slurs out, getting a little more comfortable, snuggling up next to Bill. “Don’t you like our after-parties?”  
It takes all of Bill’s will power to say, in a voice that’s too deep to compensate for the squeakiness that he just _knows_ was going to come out: “Oh, I’m. Not much of a party person, you know.”  
“Mm-hmm.” 

He keeps babbling on for a while, until he’s sure Seth is definitely sleeping; then he tugs the blanket over him. As he does that, Seth blindly shuffles around until he’s basically snuggled up against Bill’s chest, and Bill knows, he _knows_ , he should slide away and go sleep in his armchair as usual, but he doesn’t move.   
He wraps an arm around Seth’s shoulders, lifts his feet up on the coffee table, tries to get as covered up as possible without disturbing Seth. He falls asleep looking at the Christmas trees flickering on and off in the office windows on the other side of the street, with Seth’s warm weight pressed against his side.

*

Bill is already prone to breaking at the worst possible time, but for some reason, he hasn’t been able to concentrate since he sat down. Fred, currently in his costume as half of the Gay Couple from New Jersey, hasn’t broken character once, but he does look incredibly amused at Bill’s problems.

The thing is, while he and Fred make kissy faces to each other, Bill keeps catching Amy’s expression over Fred’s back and bursting into giggles.

“Ok, I’m sorry, let’s start again,” Bill says, trying to compose himself.   
“All right,” Seth says, clearing his voice.  
“I mean,” Fred says, chewing loudly and shrugging, already smirking in anticipation, “Dress rehearsals.” and he grabs Bill’s face and kisses him on the mouth. 

The audience explodes in cheers and whistles, and Bill _immediately_ starts laughing against Fred’s face.  
“Come on! Let me do my thing!” he complains, pushing Fred off.  
“I’ll let you do your thing, all right, babe.” Fred drawls out, and Bill starts laughing again.  
“Children,” Seth says, suddenly resorting to his Boss Voice, “Behave, please.”  
“Dress rehearsals!” Amy yells behind him, and leans in front of Seth so she can high five Fred.  
“Oh, ok. All right. Let’s settle down.” Seth insists. “Oof! Dress rehearsals,” he shakes his head, eyes fixed on his fake notes, trying to ignore the mess the audience is making.

Bill, on his part, immediately shuts up.

It’s the last episode before Christmas. The mood the past week has been swinging almost violently between utter exhaustion and the excitement at the thought of the approaching holidays.  
Seth is just nervous, Bill tells himself, trying to focus; he’s nervous, he doesn’t _hate_ him. He wasn’t chastising _him_ ; he’s just tired.  
And yet, after the rehearsals are over, Seth just marches away without even looking at Bill.

“You all right, man?” Fred asks him, at one point, as they’re both taking off their costumes in the middle of a crowd of busy staff and getting into the costumes for their next sketch.  
“I think I may have a problem.” Bill says, trying, and failing, to tie his tie.  
“Drugs or alcohol?” Fred asks.  
“No.” Bill answers.  
“Hey guys!” a voice says, and out of fucking nowhere, Justin Timberlake appears, already in costume, looking incredibly chipper. “This is so cool, uh?”  
“Uuuh,” Bill says, because, you know. It’s Justin fucking Timberlake.  
“It’s gonna be great.” Fred nods.  
“Yeah,” Bill says, his voice coming out so squeaky he starts feeling genuine panic at his current situation, “Rad.”  
“Rad,” Justin Timberlake repeats, and he sounds so genuinely delighted, Bill’s incoming panic attack takes a couple of steps back out of sheer shock. “Here, I’ve got that,” he then says, positioning himself in front of Bill and methodically starting to tie his tie. “Do you have any knot preferences?”  
“There are different kinds of knots?” asks Bill. All of a sudden he feels completely calm, which, he realizes, may be more because he’s starting to disassociate than because he’s comfortable with standing in a room full of people, wearing the top half of a suit and his underwear, with Justin Timberlake tying his tie and charmingly laughing at his choice of words. 

For the first time in five weeks, when Bill gets to Seth’s office after the show, Seth is leaving.  
“Holiday break, you know,” he shrugs. “I thought I’d at least drop by the party for an hour or so. Get drunk. All that.”  
“Oh.” Bill says, because he’s dumb, and like the dumb person he is, he hadn’t even considered the fact Seth may want to go to the office Christmas party and have fun, like a normal fucking person, instead of hanging out in his office with Bill, like the weird kid at school who’s obsessed with ants and only has one single loser friend he doesn’t even like who keeps showing up at his house to eat all of his snacks and talk about comic books or something. “Right.”  
“You’re going too, right?” Seth asks, and right the second Bill’s heart dares skip a beat at the thought of Seth possibly actually not thinking Bill is an annoying weirdo and honestly enjoying his company, he adds: “I hear Justin Timberlake’s already parting over there, I thought you may want to go hang out with him.”

Ah.

“He’s kinda cool, right?” Bill offers, suddenly feeling so shy he doesn’t even have it in him to play the clown to lighten up the mood.  
Because the mood _has_ taken a funereal turn. Shit, maybe Seth is still angry about dress rehearsals. Bill _told him_ , he _told_ Fred they fuck around too much. And Seth is still his boss, he can act friendly and all, but Bill shouldn’t just assume…  
“Yeah, cool.” Seth murmurs, and starts walking away. Bill hurries after him.

So he ends up at the party, with a glass that seems to keep refilling itself (although Fred probably has something to do with it,) staring at Seth from the other side of the dancefloor like a fucking teenager with a crush.  
“This is stupid.” he says, and his voice is swallowed by the music.  
It is stupid. He’s almost thirty years old. He’s a man. He’s an adult. He’s got a dream job in fucking New York. People in his position have their shit together, he thinks, as Andy climbs on a table and starts taking his clothes off while Kristen throws one dollar bills at him.

“Hadeeer!” Justin Timberlake yells, loud enough Bill actually gets startled.  
“Jesus. Hey, man.” he says, then, as he’s squeezes in a bear hug, goes: “Oh. Ok. All right, buddy.”  
“Dude, you’re so fucking funny.” Justin Timberlake says, looking very handsome and very drunk, “Your face does all those weird things…”  
“Expressions?”  
“Yeah, those.”  
“Yeah.” Bill says, patting Justin Timberlake on the back. “You sure you’re all right, man?”  
“I’m great. Merry Christmas!”  
“Ok.” Bill answers. Surrendering to another hug. “Where is your girlfriend? You should prob-”

For the second time in two days, Bill is forcibly grabbed and kissed by a man. Except Fred had the tactfulness of not stuffing his tongue into Bill’s mouth, while Justin Tiberlake just straight out goes for it.  
“Has anybody ever told you you’ve got a great jawline?” he asks, when Bill manages to tear him off himself.  
“I don’t know,” Bill answers. “Fuck, dude.”  
That’s when Justin Timberlake’s face starts turning of a greenish shade of white, and Bill just grabs him and runs towards the bathrooms.

Bill barely manages to push Justin Timberlake in one of the stalls before he starts throwing up.  
“Thank fuck,” he sighs leaning back against the row of sinks. “What the fuck, man.”  
It takes Justin Timberlake a while to drag himself out of the stall. He washes his face, rubs his eyes. In the meantime, Bill is zoning out _hard_ . The bathroom is blindingly white and blindingly bright, after the dance-floor, and his eyeballs are hurting.  
“Feeling better?” he asks.  
“Yeah,” says Justin Timberlake, then goes: “Uh,” turns around, and marches back into a stall.  
“Fuck.” Bill murmurs, turning around and splashing water in his face.

“So much for not being a party person,” Seth’s voice says, and Bill almost jumps out of his skin.  
“Jesus Christ!” Bill blurts out.  
Seth hums, biting the inside of his cheek. He’s left his jacket somewhere, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Bill gets lost for a moment staring at his forearms, all the alcohol he’s jugged down suddenly back with a vengeance after briefly being kicked in the background by fear of being puked on.  
“Seems like everybody’s trying to get their hands on you, lately, uh?” Seth says, his voice completely flat.

Bill has no fucking clue what to say to that.   
He looks at Seth, his shirt unbuttoned farther down than usual at the collar, his hair all messy, his face flushed by either the heat of the dance-floor or alcohol, and feels very, very dumb, and very, very sad.  
“Are you two done? Because I honestly don’t feel like peeing with a background of blowjob noises.” Seth asks.  
“What.” Bill says.  
“What?” Seth shoots back.  
“There are no blowjobs happening,” Bill says, “Nor any, uh. Kind of. Jobs. Or whatever.”  
“You seemed pretty eager to get in here, is all I’m saying.”  
“Oh, he was going to throw up,” Bill says, relief at having an answer for _something_ making him almost yell. “He’s drunk. You know. Also, he’s not…”  
“Gay?” Seth offers, at the same time as Bill says: “My type.”

There’s a moment of silence in which they just stare at each other, cold shivers genuinely running down Bill’s spine from utter terror. Seth raises an eyebrow at him.  
“Justin Timberlake is not your type?” he asks, slowly.  
“Nah, he’s… I mean, he’s fine. He’s cool. You’re cool, Mr. Timberlake,” he calls out. A weak ‘thanks, man’ rises from the stall. “He’s cool,” Bill continues, pointing at the stall, “but he’s not…”  
“A woman?” Seth asks, softly.  
“You.” Bill answers, in the smallest, most pathetic whisper ever uttered by a human being.

Silence again. Bill stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks at his feet.  
Shit, even the floor is fucking blinding.  
“I’m sorry, Seth,” he says, daring to lift up his head, “I’ve had a lot to drink, I’m just…” 

He stops.

Seth doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t look disgusted, or amused, or anything like that. He’s just looking at him with the most innocent kind of surprise painted on his face.  
“Bill,” he says. Just that. He takes a step forward, then seems to lose courage and stops. “I,” he starts, then he licks his lips and shuts his mouth.

_You_, Bill thinks, for some reason. Then he closes the distance between the two of them, cups Seth’s neck with both his hands, and kisses him. He feels the tiniest of whimpers against his mouth, Seth’s hands against his shoulders. 

That first kiss is quick and soft, barely a kiss at all, but the moment Bill tries to move away to make sure Seth isn’t freaking out, he’s grabbed by the collar and pulled back in, and _this time_ Seth’s tongue presses into his mouth. He pushes Bill until his back hits the wall, presses himself against him, drags his teeth against Bill’s lower lip, and Bill feels _extremely_close to dying on the spot. He moves his hands down to Seth’s waist, then to his back, pressing him closer as Seth grinds against him.

“Let’s go,” Seth murmurs, urgently, “Let’s just. Get out of here.”  
“What about Justin Timberlake?” Bill murmurs back.  
“I’ll deal with it, let’s go.” Seth repeats, and kisses Bill again, deep and quick, “Let’s go.”

It’s a blur, after that. A series of events punctuated by the furious drumming of Bill’s heart: Seth hurrying to whisper something to Amy, then grabbing his and Bill’s coats; the two of them getting dressed as they almost jog outside and down a flight of stairs; Seth waving at a taxi, framed by the lights of Manhattan, snow falling around them.  
“Where to?” asks the driver, and they both start blurting out their own addresses, before stopping and looking at one another.  
“30 Rock,” Seth says, “30 Rockefeller Plaza.”

The fact traffic is slow and the ride takes way longer than necessary isn’t even an issue. It just means they get to slow down as well, and their kissing gets lazier, deeper. Seth’s fingers dig into Bill’s hair and shivers run down his spine. There’s a moment when they separate to catch their breath, and Seth keeps his eyes closed for a few seconds longer, his nose brushing against Bill’s; when he does open his eyes, the red and white lights from outside the window are reflected in them.   
“Jesus Christ, Seth Meyers, you’re so fucking pretty.” Bill whispers, breathless, and Seth smiles, and his eyes go thin and wrinkles form at the corners, and Bill’s heart hops right into his throat.

They almost, but not really, hold hands as they stand side by side in the elevator. Their fingers keep touching, so they just hook a few of them together and both look up at the numbers counting up to 17. Seth’s beanie has been either lost or forgotten somewhere, and there are snowflakes melting in his messy hair.

They don’t even need to talk; as soon as the elevator doors open, they both start marching straight to Seth’s office. Seth turns on the lamp on his desk, he locks the door, throws his scarf on his chair. He takes Bill’s scarf off, too, then, after Bill shrugs his coat off and lets it fall on the floor, Seth unzips his hoodie and helps him out of it.   
Bill, on his part, is having problems unbuttoning Seth’s shirt; his hands are shaking hard, and he keeps fumbling with the same button for a while before cursing between his teeth. Seth rests his hand on Bill’s for a moment, he gives it a little squeeze before pushing it off and starting to unbutton the shirt himself. He lets his shirt fall on the floor, takes off his undershirt and lets it fall as well, then, as Bill stands there, almost unable to move, Seth also tugs Bill’s shirt off of him, grabs him by his belt, and pulls Bill towards the couch.

It may be the alcohol, or the fact that Bill’s blood has all migrated to his dick, or the fact he can feel the vibration of Seth’s hum under his tongue when he kisses his neck, but by the time he’s on top of Seth, Bill’s head is spinning.   
So much is happening.  
There’s Seth’s hands, one tugging at Bill’s hair, the other giving palming at Bill’s cock through his boxers; there’s the curve of Seth’s throat as he tilts his head back to let Bill kiss it better, the way his eyelashes twitch, the way he bites his lips; there’s Seth’s still-clothed erection pressing against Bill’s thigh.

It doesn’t seem like the proper moment for Bill to admit he has no clue what the fuck he’s doing. He figures a dick is a dick, and he’s been handling his own his entire life. Except when he finally gets Seth’s pants and underwear down enough, when he’s got him sprawled underneath him, his cock hard and flushed against his stomach, Bill’s brain short circuits.  
“Are you all right?” Seth asks. He perches up on an elbow, tugs at Bill’s hair until he tilts his head so he can drag his teeth against the spot between his neck and his ear; he whispers his question right against his skin, then presses a kiss to it.  
“Yeah,” Bill croaks, his throat dry.  
“You’re doing great, buddy,” Seth says, and Bill starts giggling like an idiot. Seth also laughs, squishing Bill in a one-armed hug.

He presses a single, smacking kiss to Bill’s cheek before flopping down on the couch and pulling his pants completely off, then sitting up and tugging at Bill’s belt until he’s close enough for Seth to push him down so he’s the one lying on the couch.  
“Oh.” Bill murmurs.  
“I’ve got you,” Seth says, slipping Bill’s belt off and discarding it, then tugging down his jeans.  
“_Oh_.” Bill’s voice, is humanly possible, sounds even smaller.

It’s not exactly the position Bill was expecting to end up in, but now that he’s there, with his legs spread and Seth comfortably snuggled between them, planting kisses down Bill’s chest and gently pulling at his cock, he finds absolutely no fucking reason to complain. He lets his hands wander, trace the curve of Seth’s back, of his hips, mold them to the back of his thighs as he pulls him closer. Seth, on his part, reaches past Bill and rummages in a drawer, grabbing a bottle of lotion and squeezing some into his hand, then wraps his hand around Bill’s dick and starts jerking him off.

“Fuck…” Bill says, or thinks he says, he’s not sure any sound comes out of his mouth.  
Not that it matters, because as soon as Seth gets going, hand wrapped around both Bill’s and his own cock, hips rolling to increase the friction, he leans in and presses his lips to Bill’s again.

It’s a slow thing, what they’re doing; the drawn-out, lazy sort of touching of teenagers who think they have all the time in the world to just kiss and explore.   
There is no sound to be heard around them apart from the humming of Seth’s computer and their stuttering breathing. There are moments when they separate and Bill looks up at Seth and a car drivers by down in the street, and its light briefly illuminates the room and makes the shadows on Seth’s face dance, and Bill feels a lump in his throat.

“Is this ok?” Seth asks, pressing his forehead to the side of Bill’s head and, when Bill nods, adding: “I need to hear you say it.”  
“Yes,” Bill says. “Yes. _Fuck_, Seth.”  
He feels Seth’s breath shake a little against his jaw, Seth’s skin, where Bill’s hands are resting, fills with goosebumps.

He sits up a little, and Bill barely has the time to miss the heat of Seth’s skin against his own before he’s being grabbed by the hips and pulled closer. There’s a new kind of urgency in the way he thrusts forward, fucking into this own hand; he throws his head back, eyes closed for a moment, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. Bill catches himself looking up at Seth with his mouth open in completely fucking awe. He snaps his mouth shut, looks down between his legs, at their cocks, made shiny by lotion and pre-cum; when Seth’s fingers brush against the tip of his cock, Bill flinches at the sensation, nails digging into Seth’s thigh, into his hip.

Seth comes first, leaning in, pressing their foreheads together and slamming against Bill hard for a few moments before spilling all over Bill’s stomach. Seth is still riding his own orgasm, his breath coming out in little hiccups, when Bill also comes, all of a sudden, brusquely brought over the edge by the way Seth, who’s been more or less quiet all the way through it, kept whimpering and swallowing down moans as he came himself.

“Shit,” Seth puffs out, slowly letting himself flop down against Bill.  
“Yeah,” Bill agrees, ears ringing, heart still pummeling furiously.  
He expects Seth to climb off of him, but he seems to be perfectly content where he is, tangled up in Bill’s legs, his head against Bill’s shoulder. When Bill reaches up and hesitantly touches his wrist, Seth sighs, snuggles against him a bit more comfortably, and intertwines his fingers with Bill’s, who lets himself grin smugly at the shivering lights projected on the ceiling.

He’s awoken, on Sunday morning, by Seth pressing kisses all over his face. The very first thing Bill can think, as he tries to blink sleep away and turns his head so Seth can kiss him on the mouth, is how perfectly Seth’s warm body fits against his.  
“Good morning,” Seth smiles, right against Bill’s lips, shuffling around until he’s on top of him again, straddling him, his hands against Bill’s chest as he sits back on his lap. 

Morning light is pouring all over him, and every single mark of teeth, every single bruise Bill sucked against Seth’s skin is now fully exposed; the scratch marks against his hip and thigh bright pink. It is, for some reason, precisely looking at those scratch marks that Bill starts getting hard again.  
“Relax, buddy,” Seth chuckles, “Don’t you have a plane to catch, today?”  
“Tonight,” Bill corrects him, sitting up so they can be face to face, leaning in for a kiss as Seth wraps his legs around Bill’s waist and holds on to Bill’s shoulders  
“And you’ve finished packing your bags already?” Seth asks. Bill groans and flops against him, hiding his face against the crook of Seth’s neck.  
“Let’s just not leave,” Bill whines, “Let’s tell our families we’ve got too much work, and just stay here and do this until 2007.”  
“Just haunt the seventeenth floor like horny ghosts?”  
Bill giggles against Seth’s neck, then sighs when Seth starts running his fingers through his hair.  
“We could go home, take a shower, and meet for lunch once you’ve got everything sorted.”  
“Or you could, you know. Come home with me. And we could both take a shower, and I’ll finish packing, and we can get some lunch from there.” Bill says.  
“I would have no clean clothes.”  
“You can wear my clothes?” Bill offers, hopefully.

He doesn’t really think Seth will agree, and yet, a couple of hours later he’s sitting on the floor of Bill’s living-room, wearing Bill’s clothes, going through the lowest row of Bill’s comic books bookshelf. 

“Next year, we could do our weekly comic book shopping together,” Seth says, when Bill drags his bags next to the door and walks up to him, kneeling next to him and looking at what he’s reading. “Not a lot of comic book fans at SNL.” he adds, softly.  
“I’d like that.” Bill says. When Seth starts smiling, he’s still looking at the pages; but he keeps smiling as he leans back and lets his head rest on Bill’s shoulder, looking up at him. His eyes look very very clear, this close.  
“Have you been to Midtown Comics yet?”  
“Not yet. This year has been so crazy, I haven’t really been able to go anywhere.”  
“It’s the coolest place,” Seth says, “I can’t wait to take you there.”  
And he sounds so genuinely excited, so hopeful, that Bill feels like melting.

*

Even after two hours in the airport and five hours of flight, Bill is still walking around in a glow of sheer happiness.   
He’s spent the whole flight staring at the same page of the book he brought along, smiling like an idiot at the thought of Seth kissing him goodbye in the taxi. He’d walked out of the taxi, made to close the door, thought better of it, knelt back inside and pressed a kiss to Bill’s lips. It was the cutest fucking thing. 

His sisters are both waiting outside the airport for him, they jump on him and call him ‘dickhead’ and tease him about his haircut, and Bill immediately feels a whole fifteen years younger, except once they get to the car, his youngest sister is the one behind the wheel.   
“You look happy.” Kara shouts, above the music, while they’re waiting for the light to turn green.  
“Wait until he’s been here a week, he’ll be tearing his fucking Panic! At The Disco hair off.” Katie comments, ruffling Bill’s hair.  
“How’s work?”  
“Oh, I cry under the shower every Saturday morning. ” Bill says, “The best part of it is once the show is over.”  
“Rad,” Kara comments.  
“How come you’re so happy, then?” Katie asks, poking at Bill’s shoulder. “Did you get a _girlfriend_?” she grins, smugly. “Is she _hot_?”  
Bill just laughs.

They spend a single night in Bill’s childhood home. By the following morning, the Hader family is distributed in two cars and on their way to the cabin where they’ve been spending their holidays since Bill was a kid.   
According to his dad, an ice storm hit the area while Bill was still in New York. The woods they drive through have been stripped of leaves, but the freezing rain that fell during the night has clung to the branches, filling them with a thick coating of fine shards of frost, which makes them look as if they came out of a fairytale; they shimmer in the sun, incandescent white and otherworldly, and the disconnect between the way the woods look and Nickleback on the radio is doing weird things to Bill’s perception of reality.

The first few hours at the cabin are a chaos of cleaning up, opening windows, making beds; by the time everything is decently set, Bill is aching all over and covered in dust and sweat.  
He does beat the rest of the family to a shower, though, so at least there’s that.   
As he stands under the warm jet of water, he wonders whether Seth has left for New Hampshire yet; he pictures him driving down slippery roads, humming along with the radio. The longing, the craving he feels as he thinks of him is something almost physical. He hasn’t taken a real holiday since he started working at SNL, he’s been looking forward to this for months, and now that he’s here, in the middle of nowhere, free to sleep how much he wants and with an home-cooked meal always at hand, he can’t wait to go back to New York.

They’re sitting around the table when his phone starts ringing, and Bill gets up so fast he almost trips, says something about it being a work-related call, and hurries to his room.  
“How was the flight?” Seth asks. There’s noise around him, voices, maybe a tv, some cars.  
“Ok,” Bill answers, letting himself fall on his bed. “Did you leave yet?”  
“Yes, but, _man_ , I should’ve come by plane.” Seth sighs, “I left this morning and I’m still in Connecticut. The roads are all frozen over… Thank you so much, have a good day, sir. Sorry, I’m getting something to eat.”  
“I wish you were here,” Bill says, then winces, “I mean. Sorry. That was cringy as fuck.”  
Seth laughs. “Don’t say that,” he says, and Bill can hear the smile in his voice, he can picture the way he would look while he says it, with laughter lines at the corners of his pretty eyes and that big, bright smile of his lighting up his face. “I miss you too.” he adds, his tone softer, sweeter. 

When Bill gets back to the table, he’s still got a stupid, smug grin plastered on his face.


End file.
